No New Enemies Feature
Interview with Maxi Meissner

http://nonewenemies.net/2010/04/10/maxi-meets-vivian-wenli-lin/

Growing up as an only child from a strong independent woman from the former GDR I never experienced the need to emancipate or to reflect much about my womanhood. Since I never felt marginalized as a Caucasian woman and since I never had to fight for equal payments, I just did not know what to reflect about. Meeting Vivian Wenli Lin, a video artist with a feminist focus, got me thinking and I hoped that meeting her would deconstruct my image of feminists as bra burning asexual women.

A celebration and memorial tribute to Loni Ding, 1931-2010, will be held on Monday, April 12, 2010 at the Brecht Forum at 451 West Street, between Bank and Bethune, New York City. It will start at 6:30 PM with a potluck dinner, screening of her work and video excerpts of the service and Chinatown Memorial March that happened in San Francisco on March 14. There will be an open forum for people to tell stories, poems and anecdotes about this wonderful woman. Loni’s partner, David Welsh, will be present along with many colleagues and former students.

Loni Ding (Isadora Quanehia Ding Welsh, or Ding Bick Lon) was an award-winning filmmaker as well as a teacher, people’s advocate and community organizer. She was one of the pioneers who launched the Neighborhood Arts Program of the San Francisco Art Commission. As a tireless advocate for social issue documentary, Loni played a central role in the creation of the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (now the Center for Asian American Media) and ITVS, as well as being a leading voice in the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. Her television programs have reached literally millions of school children and PBS audiences. Her ground-breaking films include the Color of Honor and Nisei Soldier, about the Japanese American soldier in World War II; the Bean Sprouts children’s series; and Ancestors in the Americas, a television series about the history of Asians in the Western hemisphere.

Isadora Quanehia Ding Welsh, or Ding Bick Lon, known as Loni Ding, passed away peacefully on February 20, 2010 at Summit Hospital in Oakland, following a stroke. She was 78.

Loni was a mentor, mother, friend, teacher, filmmaker, pioneer, and pure inspiration.

She was my professor in 1999-2000 and I had the honor of working with her from 2000-2002.

www.cetel.org